Saturday, January 29, 2011

President Barack Obama issued a plea for restraint in Egypt after meeting with national security aides Saturday to assess the Cairo government's response to widespread protests threatening the stability of the country.

The Department of Homeland Security is getting rid of the color-coded threat level system. It was introduced after 9/11, and was supposed to tell you how likely a terrorist attack might be. Except that it never did.

Moving to dispel claims that President Barack Obama was not born in Hawaii, his supporters in the state's legislature have introduced a bill that would allow anyone to get a copy of his birth records for a $100 fee.

President Obama promises to focus his State of the Union tonight on one of the most important domestic questions we have faced in years. Whether he will succeed in moving the nation forward will depend not only on his own leadership but on the willingness of others -- the left, the right and the media -- to put the country first.

In the runup to the 2006 midterm election in which Republicans lost control of the House, the Bush administration repeatedly broke the law by using federal funds to send Cabinet secretaries and other high-level political appointees to congressional districts of GOP candidates in tight races, according to a government report.

Monday, January 24, 2011

Top Democratic and Republican senators, negotiating proposed reforms of the use of filibusters and other legislative stalling tactics, are close to an agreement on modest changes to curb the practices but not eliminate them altogether, two Senate aides told CNN.

An Illinois Appeals Court has ruled that former White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel's name can't appear on the ballot for Chicago mayor because he didn't live in the city in the year before the election.

On the bluffs overlooking the Missouri River loom two trophies won by North Dakota's congressional muscle — a four-lane bridge honoring the nation's veterans and a gleaming college energy center with a glassy facade and a panoramic view of the water.

Tuesday's State of the Union address will be watched closely not only for what is said, but also for who will there in person to hear it -- especially the black-robed members of the U.S. Supreme Court.

Texas Gov. Rick Perry likes to tell Washington to stop meddling in state affairs. He vocally opposed the Obama administration's 2009 stimulus program to spur the economy and assist cash-strapped states.

Saturday, January 22, 2011

Representative Gabrielle Giffords has begun what will likely be a months-long recovery at a Houston rehabilitation center two weeks after being shot in the head by an Arizona gunman, medical staff said on Saturday.

Friday, January 21, 2011

Buoyed by huge election gains for their allies, anti-abortion activists head into their annual March for Life rallies sensing a prime opportunity in many states to rein in the broad abortion access established 38 years ago by the Roe v Wade decision.

Justice Antonin Scalia, a popular and entertaining speaker at various forums around the world, has one of the busiest schedules off the bench. But a closed-door address the conservative justice is scheduled to give Monday afternoon has attracted controversy, partly because of who is sponsoring the event.

Former President George H.W. Bush defended the decision to kick Saddam Hussein out of Kuwait in the first Gulf War on Thursday and said his own adviser's criticism of his son's policies and invasion of Iraq in 2003 didn't bother him.

North Dakota Sen. Kent Conrad's retirement plans underscore a big problem for Democrats in 2012 and beyond. Farm Belt and Southern voters who prefer a Republican president but have often backed moderate Democrats for Congress seem increasingly inclined to vote GOP in all federal races.

According to the latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll, Obama’s approval rating has surged above 50 percent; confidence in the economy also has spiked; and the Democratic Party — but not the GOP — now enjoys a net-positive rating from the American public.

Condoleezza Rice said she is enjoying life as a college professor outside the political realm, but she says the job is similar to her previous post -- secretary of state under former President George W. Bush.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Wednesday that the Obama administration wants to find as much common ground as possible with China, calling U.S.-Chinese relations the key to world stability in the 21st century.

Tuesday, January 18, 2011

The tragic shooting in Tucson, Ariz., has already prompted several major gun proposals on Capitol Hill. But none of them address how to stop an obviously mentally unstable individual like Jared Lee Loughner from buying a gun.

Rahm Emanuel hopes Bill Clinton can persuade Chicago voters to support his bid for mayor, despite a former mayoral contender's warning that Clinton risks his popular standing with the African American community by backing Emanuel rather than a black candidate.

Barack Obama has found his voice again. America first heard him in 2004, when his address to the Democratic national convention electrified the delegates and marked the young Illinois legislator as a political comer.

Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin said Monday that she used the term "blood libel" to describe comments made by those who falsely tried to link conservatives to the assassination attempt against Rep. Gabrielle Giffords.

Gov. Paul LePage changed his Martin Luther King Jr. holiday weekend plans and showed up at a breakfast honoring the slain civil rights leader Monday, days after he said critics of his decision to skip other events could "kiss my butt." He even joined some of the participants in an African dance.

Friday, January 14, 2011

The Obama administration on Friday ended a high-tech southern border fence scheme that cost taxpayers nearly $1 billion but did little to improve security. Congress ordered the high-tech fence in 2006 amid a clamor over the porous border, but the project yielded only 53 miles of protection.

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano on Friday canceled the controversial virtual fence along the U.S. border with Mexico, citing technical problems, cost overruns and schedule delays since its inception in 2005.

Republicans gathering in South Florida to improve the party's outreach to Hispanic voters will tackle trade, education — and the elephant in the room, immigration — at a conference organized by the new Hispanic Action Network.

Possible presidential contender Gov. Haley Barbour — under fire recently for comments that critics claim minimized the problems of Mississippi's civil rights era — said Tuesday night that his state should build a museum dedicated to the movement.

Congress has responded to the Saturday shootings of 19 people, including U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, with a "collective embrace" rather than a "torrent of accusations," House Speaker John Boehner said at a bipartisan congressional prayer service Wednesday.

Monday, January 10, 2011

Jared Loughner, head shaved, a cut on his right temple and his hands cuffed, stared vacantly at a packed courtroom Monday and sat down. His attorney, who defended "Unabomber" Ted Kaczynski, whispered to him.

Democratic Congresswoman Carolyn McCarthy of New York -- who ran for office after a gunman killed her husband and injured her son -- is drafting legislation that would ban the sale of high-capacity gun ammunition magazines to civilians in the aftermath of the tragic shooting in Tucson, Arizona.

President Obama expressed sadness Monday over the weekend shootings in Tucson, Arizona. "All of us are still grieving and in shook from the tragedy that took place," he told reporters in a joint news conference with French President Nicolas Sarkozy.

Tragically, the shooting Saturday at a congressional event in Arizona now has the ability to do what elected officials haven’t been able to do: usher in a more civil era in politics and, at a minimum, simply start a SERIOUS conversation about political rhetoric.

In his first public statement since the weekend shooting rampage outside an Arizona supermarket, the husband of a wounded U.S. congresswoman thanked supporters and expressed condolences to families of other victims.

The History Channel will not air a controversial miniseries it produced about the Kennedy family, saying the multimillion project that had become the network's most expensive on record did not fit the "History brand."

A piece of mail ignited Friday at a U.S. Postal Service distribution center in Washington, a day after several suspicious letters "flared up" at state government buildings in Maryland, authorities said.

The state of Oklahoma will file a lawsuit within the next few weeks challenging the constitutionality of President Barack Obama's health care overhaul, according to the state's incoming attorney general.

Thursday, January 6, 2011

The Pentagon wants to slice an additional $78 billion over the next five years as part of a massive cost cutting initiative, the secretary of defense told congressional members Thursday morning, according to Rep. Adam Smith, D-Washington.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates will cut $78 billion from the Pentagon budget in the next five years, money that will come from shrinking the military's ground force, increasing health care premiums for troops and other potentially unpopular cost-saving measures.

Wednesday, January 5, 2011

Holly Petraeus, the wife of the top U.S. general in Afghanistan, is getting a high profile role of her own. Thursday she will be named to a key position in the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, according to a source who would not speak for attribution because the announcement has yet to be made.

A group of state legislators opposed to illegal immigration plan to propose a legislative "fix" Wednesday that would prevent children of illegal immigrants born in the United States from being citizens, a spokesman said.

Incoming Speaker John Boehner and his Republican colleagues regain control of the House of Representatives today and will be instrumental in shaping legislation and policy for the next two years. What should be the top priority for GOP House leaders heading into 2011?

President Barack Obama has narrowed the list of candidates for White House chief of staff down to two -- current interim boss Pete Rouse and former Clinton Commerce Secretary William Daley -- according to two senior Democratic sources close to the process.

Like many of the nation's new governors, in capitals from Sacramento to Albany, New York's Andrew Cuomo has shunned the usual inaugural pomp because of the state's dire circumstances of soaring budget deficits and sinking public confidence.

Eager to show who's now in charge, the House's new Republican majority plans to vote to repeal President Barack Obama's landmark health care overhaul before he even shows up in their chamber to give his State of the Union address.